GE and cinelan today announced the five Jury Prize winners of its $200,000 FOCUS FORWARD Filmmaker Competition: Callum Cooper (“Mine Kafon”), Kim Munsamy (“Bones Don’t Lie And Don’t Forget”), Paul Lazarus (“Slingshot”), Jared P. Scott & Kelly Nyks (“The Artificial Leaf”), and Rafel Duran Torrent (“Cyborg Foundation”). The Grand Jury Prize of $100,000 will be announced at a live Awards Ceremony on January 22 during the 2013 Sundance Film Festival.

The jury for the Competition includes Sundance Film Festival Senior Programmer Caroline Libresco, actress Daryl Hannah (Kill Bill), and award-winning filmmakers Barbara Kopple (Harlan County, USA), José Padilha (Elite Squad), Joe Berlinger (Paradise Lost), Floyd Webb (Daughters of the Dust), and Peter Wintonick (Manufacturing Consent). The winning films are live and available to view for free on the FOCUS FORWARD website, along with the 15 other Filmmaker Competition Finalists (http://focusforwardfilms.com/finalists).

Films submitted to the Filmmaker Competition are three-minute end-to-end stories about people or organizations whose innovative efforts in medicine, computer science, robotics, engineering, green energy, or other fields of art and knowledge have had a significant positive impact on humanity. Last fall, a selection of 95 Semifinalist Competition films were made available online to a global audience through Vimeo; 10 Audience Favorites, based on a tally of public online votes, were announced on December 21.

“Sundance Institute shares with FOCUS FORWARD a commitment to facilitating and supporting the creation and exhibition of short-form films,” said John Cooper, Director of the Sundance Film Festival. “Two films supported by FOCUS FORWARD, from directors Morgan Spurlock and Albert Maysles, both of whom are Sundance alums, are strong additions to the Short Film Competition at our Festival this year.”

“It is an honor and a pleasure to collaborate with Sundance on the FOCUS FORWARD project for GE," said cinelan Managing Partner Douglas Dicconson. “Their commitment, energy and unwavering support has inspired us to continue to find new ways to work together in the future.”

Two new films by renowned filmmaker Albert Maysles (Grey Gardens) and Morgan Spurlock (Mansome), created specifically for the FOCUS FORWARD – Short Films, Big Ideas series of 3-minute stories about innovation, will make their world premiere in the Shorts Competition of the 2013 Sundance Film Festival and will also be paired with select features in the Sundance U.S. Documentary and World Cinema Documentary sections.  They will have their global online premiere on Tuesday, January 22, at 12pm EST on www.vimeo.com/focusforwardfilms and be shown at a special public screening beginning 5:30pm MST at the Holiday Village Cinema 1 in Park City, alongside three new FOCUS FORWARD films, by Lucy Walker (The Crash Reel), Senain Kheshgi (Project Kashmir), and David White & Paul Wedel (I Kill), will also world premiere at the Holiday Village Cinema screening.

FOCUS FORWARD - Short Films, Big Ideas is a series of 30 three-minute nonfiction films, inspired by GE’s vision of innovative people being the catalyst for world change. Produced by leading documentary filmmakers, the films explore the incredible human power of ideas and invention and are screening at prestigious film festivals globally, followed by day-and-date distribution online to millions of viewers. FOCUS FORWARD films are distributed across cable and satellite VOD, gaming system networks, Internet Free On Demand services as well as in theaters and on DVD.

The schedule of FOCUS FORWARD events during the Sundance Film Festival is as follows:

TUESDAY, January 22, 2013 | The SHOP | 2-4PM

FOCUS FORWARD $200,000 FILMMAKER COMPETITION AWARDS CEREMONY

The five winners of the $200,000 Filmmaker Competition will be awarded their respective cash prizes by

Jury members Daryl Hannah, Barbara Kopple, Floyd Webb, Peter Wintonick, and Caroline Libresco.

The five winning films will be shown; lunch and cocktails will be served.

** Invitation Required **

TUESDAY, January 22, 2013 | Holiday Village Cinema 1 | 5:30-7PM

FOCUS FORWARD SPECIAL SCREENING

Twelve FOCUS FORWARD films will screen to the public, including the world premiere of

3-minute documentary shorts from Albert Maysles and Morgan Spurlock, the five winning films in

 the $ 200,000 FOCUS FORWARD Filmmaker Competition, the world premiere of films by

Senain Kheshgi, David White & Paul Weder, and Lucy Walker, and the North American

premiere of shorts by Leslie Iwerks, Victor Kossakovsky, Alex Gibney,

Fredrik Gertten, Lixin Fan, and Steve James.

Followed by a Q&A with attending directors.

** Tickets Required **

FOCUS FORWARD films making their world premiere during the Sundance Film Festival include:

Sundance Film Festival Shorts Competition

YOU DON’T KNOW JACK, Dir. Morgan Spurlock, 2013

Jack Andraka, a high school sophomore, has developed a revolutionary new test for pancreatic cancer. The future of science is in the hands of our youth.

THE SECRET OF TREES, Dir. Albert Maysles, 2013

What do trees know that we don’t? 13-year-old inventor Aidan realized that trees use a mathematical formula to gather sunlight in crowded forests. Then he wondered why we don’t collect solar energy in the same way.

Premiering in a Special Screening at Holiday Village Cinema on 1/22

THE CLEANEST PIG, Dir. David White & Paul Wedel, 2013

After waiting 50 years, some exceedingly rare pigs help Dr. Bob Elliott perform a medical miracle.

TECHISTAN, Dir. Senain Kheshgi, 2013

Tech entrepreneur Rehan Allawala is on a mission to empower Pakistan's most disenfranchised before they’re left behind by the Internet revolution.

THE CONTENDERS, Dir. Lucy Walker 2013

How did a group of online fold.it gamers solve in three weeks a medical puzzle that had baffled AIDS researchers for over a decade?

The award-winning professional filmmakers who are contributing to the FOCUS FORWARD – Short Films, Big Ideas series include Jessica Yu, Phil Cox, Jeremiah Zagar, David W. Leitner, Jessica Edwards & Gary Hustwit, Katy Chevigny, Nelson George, Eddie Schmidt, Kief Davidson, Lixin Fan, Michèle Ohayon, Steven Cantor, Jeff Reichert & Farihah Zaman, Fredrik Gertten, Senain Kheshgi, Annie Sundberg & Ricki Stern, Lucy Walker, Liz Garbus, Ross Kauffman, Leslie Iwerks, Steve James, Alex Gibney, Morgan Spurlock, Stanley Nelson, Victor Kossakovsky, Petra Epperlein & Michael Tucker, Heloisa Passos, David White & Paul Wedel, Supriyo Sen, and Albert Maysles.